


bloodsport [fighting in a love war]

by qqueenofhades



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Free Garcia Flynn 2k17, Future Fic, Garcia Flynn Human Disaster, Season 2, garcy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-15 11:08:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10555298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qqueenofhades/pseuds/qqueenofhades
Summary: “No, because you – ” It’s clear that Flynn has gotten himself into far more delicate footing than he at all intended. “Because you shouldn’t have to. Isn’t that what you got me out of jail for? To do your dirty work? To kill so you wouldn’t have to have it on your hands, even though you know there is sometimes no other choice? Isn’t that what you wanted?”Once more, Lucy chokes. “And what,” she asks, “do you know, exactly, about what I want?”Flynn gives her one of those looks that says he might have more than an idea, but if she doesn’t have the gumption to prove it, well, she can just go on pretending she doesn’t.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BellarmyBlake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellarmyBlake/gifts).



Lucy has heard the rain drumming on the roof all evening. It hasn’t stopped since they got back – barely – from November 1884. The Berlin Conference, where the voracious European powers decided how to split up and colonize Africa, the kind of historical event that is already evil enough that Rittenhouse can hardly do much worse. Not, of course, that they have not tried. The delegates of fourteen countries, including the United States, attended the conference, and the American contingent included both Rittenhouse operatives, on one hand, and Flynn, Lucy, and Wyatt on the other. (Rufus, faced with the fact that he, a black man, cannot walk into a room of rich white racist imperialists, had to pose as Wyatt’s valet.) It also included historical Rittenhouse member, Sir Henry Morton Stanley, the African explorer of “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” fame. Or should they say, _late_ historical Rittenhouse member, who never actually got to be a Sir. He was supposed to be knighted in 1899, and die a comfortable death in London in 1904, but during the escape, Flynn, well. Flynn may have shot him in the head.

Lucy rubs her fingers over her eyes. She doesn’t think Stanley had anything major left to do that would significantly alter history, and he was a notorious and flagrant jackass, so it is not as if his early demise is undeserved. Still, though, this isn’t the first of the important people Flynn has taken out. He is the reason they were able to disrupt Rittenhouse’s plans – barely – for changing the outcome of the conference (again, hard to be _more_ evil, but they were trying). He had all the intelligence on how to get them in and who was in the organization. It seems a little ungrateful of Lucy to go telling him off for one extra death now.

(Especially when he wasn’t the only one. Especially when she grabbed a carriage pistol from one of the hansoms outside Otto von Bismarck’s mansion on Wilhelmstrasse, as bullets were flying in all directions, and took down the Rittenhouse operative on the balcony with a shot she will never make again in her life. Is Flynn’s transgression somehow worse, just because history remembered his victim’s name? Especially when Stanley was, as noted, a dick?)

Lucy clenches her fists, still feeling the kick of the antique pistol against them, the acrid smell of gunsmoke. Can feel Wyatt dragging her away with one hand, firing with the other, as Flynn did the same, as they barely made it back to the jerry-rigged Lifeboat and 2017. They aren’t entirely sure they _did_ stop Rittenhouse, Flynn and Wyatt had a shouting match as soon as they landed, and Rufus is justifiably salty over the whole thing. Lucy is still sitting in her damp, bedraggled dress from 1884, listening to the rain and her racing thoughts, feeling heartsick and tired and angry, and she doesn’t even know at what, aside from everything. She has given too much of her life to this, and she isn’t getting anything back. Not that that is why she signed up for it, or why she has continued. But it still feels like darting around, frantically dousing embers, while the brush fire rages on, uncontained. Only growing stronger, and stronger.

After a moment, Lucy gets up, a lock of hair slipping loose from its elegant chignon and into her eyes. She could go find Wyatt and Rufus, suggest a drink, some kind of de-stress before whatever other ridiculous assignment hits them in the face. And she still might. But not right now. Instead, she heads down the hall and out into the warehouse where they’ve built a makeshift base of operations. She’ll find him in here. He usually is.

Garcia Flynn is still in his 1884 clothes as well, shirtsleeves rolled up and cravat loosened, sitting at the workbench and tinkering with some delicate bit of telemetry from the Lifeboat’s systems. He has been trying to stabilize its rather tenuous modifications for four people, since he’s familiar with the Mothership, which can hold half a dozen, and even if he wasn’t, he would be nowhere near Time Team Happy Hour anyway. He hates them just a bit less than he hates Rittenhouse and the idea of spending the rest of his life in jail, which is why he’s agreed to help them, but he’s made absolutely no attempt to be their friend. The mission today was their new dynamic in a nutshell. They need Flynn, they need his knowledge, they need his skills, they need him on their side, but they can barely control his collateral damage and his loose-cannon nature. Good luck trying to tell him that, though.

Lucy halts by the Lifeboat, not even sure what she’s going to say or why she’s bothered to come here, as conversations with Flynn are generally about as pleasant as an acid bath. He doesn’t look up, dark head still bent over his work, as he carefully rewires something and tests the reboot. Then he says, “Come out, Lucy. I know you’re there.”

“I – ” She bites her lip, feeling like a guilty schoolchild. “Didn’t mean to disturb you.”

Flynn snorts at what is, if not quite a lie, a fairly flimsy dodge – if she didn’t want to disturb him, why come out here at all? “Let me guess,” he says, plugging in another component and then pulling it out again at once with a curse. “You’ve come to yell at me about Stanley.”

“I. . . no.” Even if she was, it’s not like it would do any good. Stanley is dead, as is Cornwallis, and as history hasn’t gone off the tracks, it makes her wonder just how exactly to the letter they need to save it. That, however, is a dangerous line of thought. “No, I just wanted to. . . thank you. We wouldn’t have gotten anywhere close to pulling that off without you, so. . . thanks.”

A faint smile curls the hard lines of his mouth. It isn’t anywhere close to friendly. “You think I need your approval? Your pat on the back, for something I’ve done all this time? Now that I’m doing it with you three around, I get a gold star?”

Lucy is taken aback. She wasn’t trying to patronize him, she was genuinely trying to reach him (for something like the two dozenth time, to no avail – she shouldn’t be surprised that she yet again ran into a brick wall). “Flynn, I – ”

“Or no, you thought I might want to talk about it?” He turns the circuit board and takes out a pair of needle-nose plyers, testing the connections. “Feel guilty, maybe? Why would I? I’m not guilty. I’m angry. I killed another Rittenhouse member. I did the same godforsaken thing I’ve done this whole time, and for what? I’m not any closer to having my girls back. I’m not any closer to being able to stop this. All I’ve done is trade in the Mothership, which at least had some space, which was _mine,_ for this broken piece of _shit_ with you three sanctimonious assholes in my face. Do you want comfort, Lucy? Need someone to hold your hand? Want to talk through how things were hard today? Go find your little soldier boy, or Rufus. I’m not interested.”

Lucy flinches. This might be her own fault as much as anything, expecting Flynn to provide any measure of solace at all, but while her frayed nerves and weary heart can’t handle another fight with him just now, she also has enough pride that she isn’t going to turn tail and scuttle, isn’t going to let him see that he hurt her. She’s told him several times that she didn’t know about Agent Christopher and the SWAT team following him to their meeting, that she didn’t mean it, she didn’t. She thinks he knows by now that this is the truth. He just doesn’t care.

“Fine,” she says, more or less evenly. “You’re not interested.”

At that, he finally looks up at her, eyes glittering beneath the shadow of his brows. Like the sparkle of a treasure hoard, enticing her to come look for it, but go very wary of waking the dragon. Sets aside the circuit board and spreads his hands on his knees, the sharp pleats of his pinstriped trousers. “But you’re still standing here.”

Lucy swallows involuntarily. She wishes he would blink, when he stares at her like that. The way she can almost feel the air tightening and twisting around them, visceral as a blow to the chest. “There – will be food. If you’re hungry. Later.”

“How magnanimous.” His accent thickens on the word, gives it a slight, mocking lilt. “Den mother of the Cub Scouts, is that you?”

“I’m nobody’s den mother,” Lucy snaps. “I was just letting you know.”

“Feeding the team?” Flynn abruptly gets to his feet, which is quite an imposing thing for him to do. “Because that’s what you have to do? Don’t pretend that you still care about me, Lucy! If you managed to arrest the rest of Rittenhouse, if Emma had never gotten her hands on the Mothership – you’d have just let me rot in jail, wouldn’t you? You didn’t bother getting me out until it was useful for you! Forgive me if I’m not feeling so eager to press flesh with my overseers and my – ”

“Your _overseers?”_ Lucy chokes. She is a foot shorter and probably seventy pounds lighter than him, but she still takes a step forward, bristling. “We’ve tried all this time to be partners. To give you a real shot. We want to work together, we want to – ”

“Yes,” Flynn sneers. “Wyatt really wants to be my best friend.”

“Both of you act like children around each other!” Lucy’s frustration is close to breaking point. “And I would have tried, I would have tried to get you out, but if I hadn’t, would I have been obligated? You spent months trying to kill Wyatt and Rufus and tear apart our team, all of history, everything in your way. If you wanted me to join you and thought we were meant to be together – to do great things together,” she corrects herself at once, cheeks burning – “you had an _awfully_ strange way of showing it. You knew that what you were doing was wrong and you didn’t like it, but you still didn’t stop. What would it have taken to make you stop? Anything?”

 _“I would have stopped when I got them back!”_ Flynn whirls around and hurls a toolbox at the wall, a terrifying explosion that makes Lucy cringe, even though it isn’t directed at her. “That was all I wanted, all I ever asked for! Now I can’t, I won’t! I was so close, _so close,_ and you – and they – took it from me! I trusted you! _I trusted you with my child!_ Do you think this is a fair exchange? Do you?”

He braces his hands against the wall, looking as if he’s about to put a hole through it, breathing like a tempest, until he turns and sees her shrinking against the strut of the Lifeboat. Something about her fear seems to get to him, and he drops his gaze, shamefaced and silent. He looks up at the ceiling, clearly distressed over upsetting her and losing control so badly, but still too stubborn to openly apologize. At last he says, “Please go, Lucy.”

She is certainly more than tempted to. Wants to get out of here before the dragon spreads its wings and soars, having already thrashed about in a fiery fit. She wants to mention that she still doesn’t have Amy back. Wants to remind him that her own mother is part of this, that her whole life is a lie, that he isn’t the only one who’s suffered and sacrificed and bled for this. Any of it.

Instead, she says, “I killed the man on the balcony.”

“You what?”

“The man on the balcony, the one firing down at us.” Lucy throws her shoulders back and meets Flynn’s gaze evenly. “I grabbed a pistol and shot him.”

Something in his eyes flickers. “I thought that was Wyatt.”

“It wasn’t.” Lucy feels oddly, steely calm.

“I didn’t think you were – ” _A killer_ hangs in the air between them, audibly unspoken. Instead, his mouth twists bitterly. “Like me.”

“Maybe you don’t know nearly as much about me as you think. Even though you read the journal, even though you think you do.” Lucy takes a step. “Did you know I killed Jesse James? I did. The men were arguing about whether or not they should. I did.”

It’s Flynn’s turn to flinch. He rucks a hand over his face, through his hair, turning on his heel and gripping the back of his chair. At last he says quietly, “You shouldn’t have, Lucy.”

“What? Because you’re the only one allowed to kill? You and Wyatt?”

“No, because you – ” It’s clear that Flynn has gotten himself into far more delicate footing than he at all intended. “Because you shouldn’t have to. Isn’t that what you got me out of jail for? To do your dirty work? To kill so you wouldn’t have to have it on your hands, even though you know there is sometimes no other choice? Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Once more, Lucy chokes. “And what,” she asks, “do you know, exactly, about what I want?”

Flynn gives her one of those looks that says he might have more than an idea, but if she doesn’t have the gumption to prove it, well, she can just go on pretending she doesn’t.

Lucy’s blood turns suddenly too hot, her head too light, her stomach rioting with butterflies. She is too aware of the way his still-damp shirt is sticking to him, sleeves rolled up and neck open, the air he is consuming, the heat and danger of his presence. In the course of their fight, they’ve somehow steadily closed the space between them, and he is standing just across from her, staring down his long nose at her, near enough to touch if she reaches out. She is not sure, however, that she wants to, for any number of reasons. First because she’s still angry at him, and second because if she sets a spark to the air between them, everything is going to explode. In one way, or another. Neither of which she can control. Neither of which is at all a wise idea.

(Oh yes, her head whispers. Lucy Good Girl Preston, always does the _wise_ thing. Closest she ever came to transgression was when she decided to quit school in her sophomore year of college and join that band with Jake. After which she crashed her car and nearly died, someone pulled her out of the water, and she didn’t think about it again, not when the universe had so clearly punished her for even considering it.)

Flynn continues to stare at her with those smoking eyes, unblinking and unmoving. His tongue darts out to touch his lips, seemingly unconsciously. Lucy’s hand raises, almost of its own volition. Not quite sure if she is trying to hit him, or get him to back off, or to just generally give him what he deserves for being such a pain in the ass, she plants it, palm first, fingers outstretched, on his chest, and pushes.

Flynn doesn’t even rock back on his heels. She might have tried to dislodge a boulder, and she can feel the heat of him burning through the thin cloth. He raises a dark eyebrow at her. Now he’s sardonically amused, which is even more obnoxious than his anger. “Oh,” he says. “Try again. You’ll really get somewhere this time.”

Lucy looks up at him, then does so. With both hands, and hard enough that he, still occupied in baiting her, actually is forced to take a few steps backward. The look of surprise on his face is enjoyable enough, and she doesn’t feel like stopping. She curls a fist and punches him, this time in the shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt him, as if she could, but hard enough to get her point across. He’s not the only one who can hold grudges.

Flynn utters a surprised _whoof,_ even as the look on his face is close to the one he wore in Harry Houdini’s tent, when his eyes could be replaced by actual heart-shaped cutouts of red construction paper without much measurable difference observed. He clearly likes this just fine, more than fine, if Lucy wants to play rough, if she’s feeling feisty, if she has finally been roused to bridle, to give as good as she’s been getting. “Oh?” he drawls, accent again turned stronger, slow and insolent. “You want to hit me, Lucy?”

She doesn’t know. She thinks she might. Just because he’s a perfect embodiment of her frustration and her anger and everything she feels as strongly as he does, about how this isn’t working, isn’t _working,_ is taking too long, going in circles over and over to the same pointless result, about why do they have to play by the rules when it means they get fucked. She takes a swing at him with the other hand, connecting solidly with his solar plexus, and he doesn’t even try to avoid the blow. “You’re punching wrong,” he informs her, breathless but not rattled. “Don’t use the knuckles of your fingers, you’ll break them. Too weak. Use the first two  knuckles of your fist, direct your force into them. Fold your thumb over your fingers, not in in them. Focus. Use your hips, not your shoulder. Throw your weight into it. Like – oof – like that.”

Lucy aims another blow at him, this one of which he knocks aside with a contemptuous flick. “Pressure points,” he goes on, taking hold of her arm. “I jab my thumb into your elbow, like that, your arm bends. Easier for you when you’re fighting someone bigger than you, it takes strength to try to wrestle them by the shoulder. Just jab, like that. Then you twist the arm, duck under, you can pin it. Don’t go for the balls unless you think you can hit them, most men are on the lookout for that. Don’t claw the eyes, poke them. Stiff finger. Heel of your hand is the strongest if you can’t get up enough space to punch.”

Lucy takes his advice, hooking her thumb into the crook of his elbow, jerking it bent, and twisting his arm behind his back, as she feels him vibrate with laughter. “Good,” he says, somewhat muffled. “I’d also suggest grabbing someone by the head and smashing your knee into their face, but you’re not that coordinated. I don’t think you could pull it off. Especially in skirts.”

“Oh?” Lucy breathes. He’s on his knees in front of her (and still almost as tall as she is) and she’s standing behind him, so it doesn’t take much for her to lean forward and whisper in his ear. “Do you want to say that again?”

He twists his head, faster than she’s prepared for, so their noses are almost brushing. His gaze can only be described as _happily._ “You can’t pull it off, Lucy.”

With that, fast as a snake, he extricates himself and stands up, making it clear that she still has a long way to go if she actually wants to match him. “Headlock, I’m not sure,” he goes on, with the air of a connoisseur at a wine tasting. “Perhaps if you jumped on their back from behind, legs around their waist, take them down, but it’s still risky. You have to know how to take a fall, make your target absorb it, not you. And also definitely not something for skirts.”

“Oh?” Lucy says again. Flicks her gaze up to him, this time with the stated challenge that he’s probably the one too scared to take it up. “Then we could get rid of those, couldn’t we?”

With that, before he has time to say anything, she pulls off her dress, not bothering to unbutton it as she’s not going to wear the damn thing again anyway (probably, at least – they can’t afford to just run through costumes with every mission, they’re on a limited supply without Mason Industries’ fashion warehouse). But she will worry about mending it later. Instead, when she’s in her blouse and leggings, which she has taken to wearing underneath, she steps out of the crumpled skirt and stares him down. “How about now?”

His eyes flick goadingly to her. “You still can’t take me by surprise.”

This is one of the more erroneous statements Garcia Flynn has uttered in a life recently full of them, but Lucy decides not to disabuse him just yet. Instead, she crosses the floor toward him at a casual pace, as if strolling on the sidewalk. Then she grabs him by the cravat, jerks his head down, and – it’s not a kiss, it misses by several inches, their mouths only catching in passing. But it does the job. He freezes dead to the spot, Lucy gets her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, and manages to work up just enough torque to throw them. They hit the deck, or rather Flynn does, taking the fall for her just as instructed (see, she’s a fast learner). They end up face to face, Flynn flat on his back and completely stunned and Lucy straddling him, still locked to him like a barnacle, hair now fully loose and hanging in her face, heart hammering so visibly that she’s sure he can see it, unable to catch her breath. She gulps, tries to get hold of herself, tells herself to let go, now. _Now._

Instead, she shifts up on him, too pleased with herself for proving him so spectacularly wrong, even as she can feel him wedged between her legs in a way that makes it uncomfortably clear to both of them that he has absolutely no problem with their current orientation. The opposite of a problem, really, unless you count the fact that he’s been so steadfastly professing to hate her guts. His throat moves as he swallows, eyelashes fluttering, as his hand rises to cup the back of her neck. He opens his mouth to say something.

No good whatsoever can come of letting Garcia Flynn say something, ever. Especially not now. Lucy’s free hand fists in the cloth of his shirt, twisting. Their noses are still brushing, his knees hiked up and hers to either side of his hips, as she lands fully atop him. In for a penny, in for a pound. She turns her head, and kisses him. This time, properly.

Flynn makes a sound through his nose as if he has just touched a live electrical wire. His hand hesitates for a split second, then crushes her head down, mouth bearing into hers with almost bruising force, as they roll over and over, entangled. Lucy gets a better grip on him, grabbing him by the ears, as he pulls her bottom lip between his teeth, bites, drags his open mouth against hers, something between a kiss and a devouring. She can barely stand the heat and force of it, the pent-up strength and frustration and sheer, snarling need, and yet, she’s no shrinking violet. She clutches at him, shoving back, as they roll once more and she gets back on top. They keep kissing until they are utterly out of breath, mouths wet and raw and swollen, hair mussed from grabbing, fingers clenched, as she sprawls on his chest and can sense both of their hearts going like trip-hammers. That felt even better than hitting him.

Flynn shifts underneath her, arching his hips into her, and both of them moan. Lucy’s fist clenched in his shirt opens, but just far enough to start pulling at the buttons of his shirt, which is half-undone anyway. He returns the favor with her blouse, practically tearing the thin silk-rayon as he shucks it off her shoulders, fingers curling under the lacy cup of her bra, but not quite going further. Their eyes meet for half a beat, as she can tell that if she stops him, he won’t touch her. It’s clear enough he’s wanted this for a while, and has just as firmly ignored it, but he’s never going to force it. It’s up to her. Push his hand away, shrug her blouse back on, and they can still pull apart and go to sleep, albeit extremely frustrated.

_Lucy Good Girl Preston._

Instead, Lucy reaches up, covers his hand with hers, and guides it down.

Flynn’s breath stutters in his throat, as does hers, as his callused fingers skim over the smooth skin of her breast. He catches briefly at her nipple with thumb and forefinger, circles under, then reaches around to her back and undoes the bra clasp with a deft flick, as Lucy shrugs it off her arms and has a moment to pray devoutly that neither Wyatt nor Rufus are going to run in and see what all the ruckus was about. This is just as patently a mistake as it was five minutes ago. But as both of Flynn’s hands come up to her chest, grasping hold, cupping and caressing, Lucy is barely able to care.

He touches her for a moment or two, and then his grasp shifts, pulling her back down for another hungry kiss as she reaches between them to pull the cravat loose and do away with the rest of his shirt. The warehouse floor is cold and not particularly comfortable, and they roll to their knees and then to their feet, but only get as far as the workbench, as Flynn sweeps aside everything he was working on earlier (managing to avoid breaking it, but barely). He lifts Lucy onto it, and stands between her legs, still having to bend slightly to kiss her. They do so with complete, voracious thoroughness, until he gets a hand free, curls around her rib, strokes down her side and takes hold of her hip. She whimpers into his mouth, lifting her leg to link around his back, urging him closer. His fingers swoop across her stomach – and then, when she breathes half a desperate, _“Please” –_ lower.

Lucy grips hold of his shoulders as he slips a hand beneath the waistband of her leggings, gasping as he roughs the pad of his thumb over her clit, knuckling into the wetness of her folds. She scoots forward on the table and tries to thrust against his hand, as he holds her by the hip with the other and ghosts a rather self-satisfied-sounding chuckle against her lips. He’s clearly taking pleasure in torturing her, flicking and teasing, never as deeply as she needs. Her belly is twisted in knots, feverish and fluttering, starving for release, and the only way she can foresee getting it involves him, one way or another. Especially when they are already, rather obviously, _in flagrante delicto._

Lucy whines, grinding on his hand, as he slips a finger into her, then a second one. This kind of heavy petting is fine and good, but she hasn’t actually gotten properly laid in too long a time to remember, and she is out of patience. She jerks on him, reaching between them with the intention of unbuckling his belt, but he lets go of her hip and catches her wrists with his free hand, maneuvering her out from between them. He finishes what he is doing inside her, with a few slick, slow strokes that make her see stars while simultaneously leaving her more frustrated and short of breath than ever, and only then withdraws his hand. Undoes his belt himself, and his eyes once more flick to hers. If she’s willing, that look says, she can have everything she wants. But if she doesn’t, she’d better tell him now, while there is any faint, forlorn hope of either of them restraining themselves.

Lucy wants. Wants a lot, and has no idea how to reconcile any of it, and is, quite frankly, sick of thinking. She does that far too much, too long, and to far too little result, and his mouth is on hers again, and she grinds up against him and gulps and needs more, needs _more_. Reaches down and gets hold of him, hot and stiff against her fingers, feeling the brief glitch in his entire body as she finally has him literally in the palm of her hand, where some might argue he has been metaphorically all along. She lifts herself up, arms around his neck, as he tugs her leggings down around her knees, then her ankles. She kicks them off. And after a final split-second hesitation, her panties too.

Flynn’s eyes take in every inch of her, transfixed, worshiping. Then he slides his hands under her thighs and lifts her off the table, as Lucy locks her legs around his waist, her arms around his shoulders. He walks them across the warehouse to the wall, and pins her against it with a thump solid enough to knock her breath out, though she might not have it anyway with how hard he is presently kissing her. Then as Lucy slides against him, wordlessly opening her body to him, he meets her eyes for a split second more, hitches her up, and just barely, just a bit, enters her.

Lucy gulps back a moan, reaching down to guide him, slipping him into her. He is hard and heavy, pushing her apart with unyielding solidness, _God_ it has been a long time, she barely remembers how this feels. After their frenzied kissing and wrestling, he’s being almost restrained, cautious, but restrained is not what she wants. There is still too much poison in her veins and in her mind and in her heart, and she wants the demons exorcised, wants to burn. She grabs hold of him. “Come on, Garcia,” she manages. “That the best you can do?”

He gives her a look that warns her she will very much regret playing with fire, gets a better grip on her thighs, and drives into her all the way, with a thrust she feels to the back of her stomach. He pushes her knees farther apart as he moves between them, lifting her up to meet him, rasping on her until she can barely handle the intensity of the sensation. Fucks her well and thoroughly, setting his teeth in her shoulder, biting at the hollow of her throat, never slowing the fierceness of his strokes. Possesses her, _uses_ her, but at the same time, she’s aware that he is barely a breath from shattering himself. That he’s giving himself to her like this because, quite simply, she already owns him, and that is far more terrifying than either of them would ever remotely admit.

It does not take much longer until both of them are gasping, dragging and jerking and clawing toward the burning brightness of climax, until Lucy’s whole body wrenches and her hips arch and her hands tear at him, until he is the only solid thing in the storm and she moans into Flynn’s mouth. His back buckles and he almost loses his grip on her, as they slide together down the wall to the floor and Lucy once more ends atop him, clutching him as they go over within a few moments of each other, shaking to the core. They lie there unmoving, him still inside her, pulsing and softening, until he slowly slips out. They do not move.

It’s about thirty more seconds, thirty blissful seconds, until Flynn’s brain belatedly reconnects with the rest of his misbehaving anatomy. He tenses all over, then heaves Lucy off, springs to his feet like a startled cat, and fumbles himself back together, jerking his trousers up and diving for his discarded shirt. He doesn’t look at her as he dresses as fast as possible, swiping a hand through his hair and doing absolutely nothing to look casual. “You should go.”

Lucy, torn from the comfortable glow of orgasm to an abrupt reintroduction to the cold warehouse floor, rolls over and gets to her feet, fishing for her clothes, cheeks burning. Even she is well aware that that was not what she came here to do (though, a jeering voice whispers in her head, _was_ it?) and she reconstitutes herself to decency at likewise top speed. The silence has quickly turned hideous, until she blurts, “We’ll just – ”

“It was a mistake.” Flynn’s shoulders remain hunched, as he doesn’t look back at her. “You were emotional.”

Lucy wants to ask if _she_ was emotional, what that made _him –_ it takes two to tango, as the saying goes, and that back there was a thoroughly mutual effort. Her thighs are slick, her heart pounding low in her stomach, the heat of him lingering between her legs, her lips raw with kissing him, her breath short, her knees trembling. The pleasure of release already feels like a distant memory. “Flynn – ”

“Go,” he repeats. “We’ll just forget this happened.”

Lucy digs her fingernails into her palms, unsure if she wants to conclude the evening, which has seen her do a great deal of both, with one more slap or one more kiss. She came here trying to sort out at least some of the tangled skeins of love and hate and unspeakable, inextricable destiny that somehow binds their souls together, and somehow she’s managed to weave it into even more of an impassable Gordian knot. So that when he says that, some reflexive, damaged self-protection instinct – _we’ll just forget this happened –_ they both already know they’re going to do anything but.

That doesn’t mean they’ll try.

That doesn’t mean this can go anywhere good.

Lucy does up the top button on her blouse, the marks of his mouth still vivid on her skin. Turns on her heel, waits for him to say something else, knows he won’t, and leaves.


	2. Chapter 2

Flynn and Lucy do not speak to each other for the next three days. This is noteworthy enough, given that Wyatt and Rufus have generally relied on her to communicate important bulletins to the fourth member of their team (or as Rufus puts it, “translating it into asshole”), that it causes both of them to take notice. It’s kind of hard not to, given that they get caught in the 1863 New York Draft Riots, straight out of Martin Scorsese, and Flynn is shooting on one side, Wyatt is shooting on the other, there is absolutely not a word exchanged between either of them, and they nearly all get killed by the Gangs of New York before they can bail. Once they arrive back at the Lifeboat, sooty and shouting and with bullet holes through several dangerously nearby pieces of their clothing, Wyatt finally explodes, “What the hell was that about, man? Huh?”

“It’s my fault now, Wyatt?” Flynn is sleek and suave and showing his teeth, which means he’s feeling especially dangerous. “Given the fact that I was the one who told you Boss Tweed was Rittenhouse, you should thank me for – ”

“Is that what you call it? You ordered Lucy to tell us that Boss Tweed was Rittenhouse, which I am sure she already knew, and which anyone could guess by looking at the guy for two seconds, and then you went to peace out in Five Points while the rest of us were dodging mobsters, so yeah, Flynn, you were a big help!” Wyatt shoves his gun into the holster as they clamber in and slam the door, not wanting to hang around here any longer than they have to. He goes to help Lucy with her seatbelt as usual, but she shakes her head at him. Flynn looks smug, goes to help instead just to show up Wyatt while briefly forgetting he’s not talking to her, and then smartly decides he does not want to try to touch her in any capacity after the look she just gave him. He sits down, buckles up with a black cloud almost visible over his head, and nobody says a word as Rufus fires up the jump to launch them back to 2017.

Once they land, Lucy angrily undoes her harness, picks up her skirts, and storms out of the Lifeboat without a word, which leaves the men behind for an extremely awkward competition of who can get out the fastest without running into each other. Rufus books it like he’s trying out for a track competition, and Flynn starts his usual melodramatic stalk off to brooding solitude, but Wyatt grabs his arm. “Hey. I’m not done with you yet.”

“What a pity, I’m done with you.” Flynn’s eyes smolder back at him like burning coals. “All of you, really.”

“Yeah. We know. You haven’t stopped telling us every day. We get it. You hate us. But you know what? Fight me. I can take it. Don’t you dare hurt Lucy, or – ”

“Is that what you think I did? Hurt her?”

“I think you did something. What the hell happened?”

“Why are you asking me?” Flynn frees himself with a jerk and stares down at the shorter man evilly. “Why aren’t you asking her? Not sure you want to hear the answer? You know I won’t tell you, so now you can say you made the effort without the risk of uncovering the outcome. Good job, soldier. Gold star. Put it on your report. Now piss off.”

“HEY!” Wyatt almost runs between him and the door, increasing Flynn’s nearly-to-boiling-point temper still further. His face is still angry, but his tone is close to frantic. “Just tell me you didn’t hurt her! Look. We’re not friends. That is clear to both of us. But I thought –  possibly idiotically, I admit –  that the one common ground we had was her. Was I wrong?”

At that, as much as Flynn wans to bark at him again, it feels like the air draining from a balloon, the water from a pool, the light from the sky. He’s momentarily flummoxed, not the least because he has no idea if he has or not. He has been doing his best not to let the events of three days ago cross his mind in any capacity, cryogenically freezing them on the spot, consigning them to the dark place of his memory where he doesn’t go. He’s not going to be able to function otherwise.

“I didn’t hurt her,” he says at last, heavily. “Not on purpose.”

A flicker of uncertainty crosses Wyatt’s face. He clearly wants to believe this, but he is preconditioned to expect the worst from Flynn, and if Flynn is honest with himself, he knows the bastard has not exactly been given any compelling evidence to the contrary. As he has told them many times, he indeed is only helping because they have just about sworn a blood oath to bring Lorena and Iris back when they’re done. And while Flynn doesn’t want to believe them a tiny bit, not after what happened the first time, he’s found himself doing it anyway. Because if he isn’t fighting for them, he doesn’t know why he’s fighting at all, and if he’s not fighting, he might as well just go curl up in a dark corner and die. It’s been like this as long as he can remember. In different ways, yes, but it isn’t something that started with losing his girls. Living in his head has been a total disaster from day one, and he’s never once been sure how to stop it. He’s tired.

“What do you mean, not on purpose?” Wyatt says at last, somewhat less heatedly. “Did you – ”

“Nothing.” Flynn turns to go. He wants a stiff drink, or three. “It was nothing, all right?”

“Whatever that _nothing_ is, it’s affecting the mission. Lucy is doing her best to pull her weight regardless, because she’s a professional. You’re. . .” Wyatt considers his words carefully. “We didn’t ask you to be on the team just because you were the nearest grunt with a gun who could be briefed about the time travel thing. If that was the criteria, we would have gone back to Pendleton and gotten another of my buddies. Another Bam-Bam, a – ”

He stops.

Despite himself, Flynn feels a faint flicker of guilt, considering that he is –  indirectly, but not very –  responsible for Dave Baumgardner’s death. Add it to the list. What comes out, of course, is caustic. “Of course not. He didn’t last very long, did he?”

“Yeah, because one of your guys shot him.” Wyatt’s head comes up, eyes flat and hard. “You’re a dick, Flynn. I know it. We know it. I’m pretty sure you know it, because you’re too smart not to. Strictly speaking, both of us should probably still be in jail. But that doesn’t matter now, and we asked you to be on the team because you are literally the only other person in the world who can help us. You think you’re the only one who has to forgive us for the betrayal that we’ve already told you ten thousand times was not Lucy’s fault. There’s plenty on our side of the ledger too. You ever think about that?”

This is the last conversation Flynn wants to be having, especially given the unhappily low whisky content in his bloodstream. “That you’re so much better than me and I should be grateful you gave me a second chance at all, from the goodness of your hearts? There. Yes. I thought about it. Can I go now?”

“No.” Wyatt remains looking at him levelly. “That we’re so much the same. As much as both of us hate it. And yeah. Fine. Go. Spend the night listening to Finnish death metal and watching grimdark YouTube videos, whatever you do to stay in the zone. Just don’t take it out on Lucy.”

With that, he spins on his heel and strides off on double-time parade march, as Flynn stares balefully after him, wondering if he could nail Wyatt between the ears from here. Probably, but it would be messy, it would be _very_ difficult to explain to the other two, and, well, Rittenhouse would probably be very pleased if he did. So, tempting as it is, he has to resist. He was hungry, but he doesn’t think he is anymore. He has no idea what to do. Sleep? As if. Go back to tinkering with the Lifeboat –  Rufus hates it when he does that, but Rufus can eat his Chocodiles and shut up. Besides, Flynn’s modifications work. Usually.

Seeing no other option, he goes to the charging station and pulls out the circuit board he’s been rewiring. These Boy Scouts he’s working with shot down his suggestion of stealing another nuke to power the Lifeboat the same way as the Mothership, which Flynn himself didn’t see anything wrong with, and they keep losing time since Rittenhouse can jump whenever they want, while the Time Team has to wait for their battery to top up. Like driving through a tunnel shouting “can you hear me now?”, while your enemies are taking the helicopter over the top. Not exactly a recipe for success.

Flynn sits down wearily, opens the case, and stares at the circuits until his eyes go out of focus. He picks up the pliers and makes a cursory adjustment, then drops his hand. Tries to work up the motivation for another one. Prove he’s valuable, not that he should be caring about what these chuckleheads think of him. He knows he blew it today, hung them out to dry –  but he came back, didn’t he? He could have bailed, left them there, taken the Lifeboat himself (well, he’d need Rufus at least for that, but he could have worked around that) and gone back to working alone. After all he’s complained, both before his absorption into the time team and after, about having to delegate, that would seem to be the simplest solution. After all, he hates them. Doesn’t care if they get stuck for good in the Civil War (funny, that, considering the civil war going on with them). Could have left. Etc. Etc.

But he came back.

Flynn doesn’t want to think about this either, and if he does go to get something to assist him in forgetting, he’ll probably run into one or all three of them, doing their insufferable team-bonding thing. Drinks after work for the crew. He can’t stand that.

(He might want it. Just a little. To sit there and be part of something. Part of them.)

(He ignores it harder.)

He has made a further few futile attempts to modify the circuit board, when he senses more than hears someone by the entrance to the warehouse, a slight shift in space that nonetheless he has become too-attuned to. He lifts his head, flicks his eyes over as surreptitiously as he can without appearing to look, and sees Lucy standing on the far side, arms folded. She’s changed out of her 1863 clothes and showered, her hair damp and dark around her pale face, and Flynn can catch a whiff of some floral shampoo that makes his throat briefly dry. He swallows hard, ignoring that too, as well as the simple sweatshirt and leggings she’s wearing. He’s seen her in all sorts of clothes by now, from every time (and less, an unhelpful voice in his brain whispers) and she looks beautiful in each, but this is a different Lucy. Lucy without her armor, without her makeup, without her never-flagging, steely strength as the undoubted captain of their ship, with just her hair loose and her walls down. She doesn’t even appear to notice Flynn. She’s here because by the looks of things, as tired as she is, sleep isn’t in the cards for her either.

He hesitates, telling himself not to do anything stupid. Then, because he is Garcia Flynn, and stupidity is embedded in his DNA, he puts the board aside and gets to his feet. “Lucy.”

She jumps, turns, sees him, and flinches. He can see her hastily putting her walls back up, her game face, preparing to deal with whatever crisis he’s about to bring to the table in any sense of the word, and he feels guilty, in a way he didn’t even for Bam-Bam, that he’s the cause of it. She gets so little rest or respite, and even here, in whatever few stolen hours she gets before their next trip, she can’t relax. Not with the Minotaur lurking in the labyrinth –  that makes her Ariadne, Flynn supposes, and it makes fucking Wyatt Theseus, which, you know, might explain a lot. Especially the throttling each other part. But Lucy is Lucy, and even now, she will give him another chance, listen to what he has to say, even if it will inevitably hurt her. She’ll put that aside too. “Yes, Flynn?” she says tiredly. “What do you need?”

That twists his heart. Of course she’d ask what he needs, prepare to fill a vacancy, requisition resources. Keep everything on track. He can hear Wyatt telling him that Lucy is still pulling her weight because she’s a professional, and he’s. . . well, he is clearly not. Briefly, he wonders if Lucy is not Ariadne, but Atlas, and you’d never know. “I. . .” Christ, he’s not good at this. He and Lorena rarely argued, and when they did, the actions were already there, the instinctive and implict permission to make it better without the words that still came so hard to him, but which he tried, for her. He has none of that with Lucy, no shortcut or safe place. “About today. It. . . could have gone better.”

A corner of Lucy’s mouth quirks wryly. It’s the closest thing that there has been to a smile on her face for the past several days, and Flynn feels almost abjectly grateful to be the reason for it. “Yeah,” she says. Calmly and matter-of-factly, not ripping into him unduly, but also refusing to let him in any degree off the hook. “Yeah, it could have.”

“Wyatt told me too. Earlier.” Flynn attempts a nonchalant shrug. “I didn’t mean to bother you. I’ll just. . .”

With that, he tries to sidle back off toward his fruitless circuit board pursuits, but Lucy’s quiet voice stops him. “Garcia.”

As it does every time she uses his first name, that roots him to the spot like a bolt of stinging lightning, pulse suddenly tripping too fast. He waits tensely, hoping she won’t say anything –  well –  dangerous. (Yes, it’s true, this is usually his department, throwing verbal bombs at her, and he would deserve it if she wanted to make him pay more for what he could have cost them today, after everything they’ve endured already.) When she doesn’t, he finally prompts, “Yes?”

“I just – ” Lucy bites her lip, which makes her look younger than usual. “What. . . happened the other night. I’m sorry if it. . . I didn’t want it to make things more difficult. They already are enough. If that’s the case, I just. . . both of us should forget. We won’t say anything to the others. I haven’t, and I know for a fact you haven’t. The job comes first.”

Flynn regards her, worn, muted, and ashamed that she feels as if she is the one who has to apologize to him, when his own actions –  well, he has still never encountered a situation that he has improved, at least without blowing it up entirely first. Finally, gruffly, he says, “You know someone needs to teach you how to fight.”

Lucy looks as if she can’t decide whether to accept this out or not. She glances down. “I wasn’t exactly talking about the fighting.”

Of course she wasn’t. They fight all the time, they exist in a constant low-level state of conflict, why would she be talking about that as anything different? Like two reverse polarities forced together, clashing and sparking, except for when they’re not, and that becomes the most dangerous state of all. And all that energy, that determination to keep up that division and distance, this war and its bloodsport, comes from Flynn. Lucy has been silently asking, begging for a truce this entire time, and all he has been doing is twisting the knife.

That, at last, is the one thing that breaks the increasingly rickety dam inside him, the one holding back his rationalizations and justifications and his anger, the way it’s been easier to focus it on her, because she’s here, and Rittenhouse isn’t. Has remained just as elusive and shadowy and multi-headed as ever, just out of reach, counting on him to do half of its work for it by continuing to punish Lucy –  the others too, yes, but especially Lucy. Both sides have always known that this turns on her. Rittenhouse attempting to recruit her hasn’t worked, but why come up with another plan, when they can see Flynn eating them out like a cancer from within? Must be waiting. Placing bets. Wondering what day Lucy breaks, and turns at last to them.

Slowly, so slowly, Flynn’s hand comes up. He reminds himself that he’ll punish himself for this later, but for once –  God, for once –  not Lucy. Wyatt’s right, she deserves this least of all, and while Flynn himself would never admit that short of having it tortured out of him (and maybe not even then), and even he can see the appeal of a détente, if a temporary one. He waits for Lucy to push him away, which he would deserve if she did, or worse. But when she doesn’t, his fingers end up brushing lightly over her cheek, his thumb tracing the bow of her lower lip, the indent of her chin. He starts to move his hand away, feeling as absurdly self-conscious as if he’s done something far worse, but Lucy takes an unexpected step, and his arm gets stuck between them.

Flynn’s throat closes as if a fist has wrapped around it. He was not counting on this, and isn’t sure how to extricate himself, as they were almost having a genuine moment there and for once, he doesn’t want to ruin it. His hands skim down Lucy’s sides to her hips, hovering but not quite taking hold, though both of them can surely feel the electricity crackling in that remaining breath of space. Lucy’s eyelashes flutter, her lips parting, until Flynn realizes, with an entirely different sort of shock, that if he leaned down and kissed her right now, she probably wouldn’t object at all. Not that he should. That is exactly the sort of action that “don’t do something stupid” from earlier was supposed to prevent.

To Flynn’s credit, he does make an effort. Perhaps less to his credit, the only thing that effort does is draw him downwards, as Lucy rises on her tiptoes. Her arms wrap around his neck –  perhaps less from a desire for deeper closeness than because of the fact that simple statistics dictate she needs to achieve considerably more height to comfortably kiss Flynn. That indeed appears to be what is happening here, as their mouths open and turn and seek hungrily deeper, as he lifts her and presses her back against the Lifeboat’s cold metal hull, as the kiss turns raw and insatiable. Until Lucy’s hand comes up to pull at his cravat, as Flynn has once more not bothered to change out of his nineteenth-century suit, he freezes, and both of them come to their senses as if doused in cold water. Lucy jerks away, Flynn puts her down, they take three steps back as if from a piece of live ordnance, and remain there, staring. It is excruciating.

“I – ” Lucy says at last. “I should go.”

“Yes.” Flynn wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, trying not to let on how breathless he is, blood roaring in his ears (and in other places). He’s only aware of how dangerous that was, the need to push her away again, before she starts feeling too sorry for him, before she thinks he deserves any kindness at all. “Run back. I’m sure the kindergarten class needs you.”

Lucy arches one eyebrow at the irony of him calling anyone else a kindergartner, especially when it comes to emotional maturity, but infuriatingly, she doesn’t take the bait. Instead, she gives him one of those piercing looks that he can never quite withstand, no matter what he tries. After a moment, she says, “Rufus.”

“What?” Whatever Flynn was expecting –  and frankly, if he was expecting anything, that would mean he thought this through, which he did not –  it wasn’t that. “What about Rufus?”

Lucy shrugs, lightly but with an unmistakable edge. “Chicago,” she says. “1931. We weren’t supposed to go there originally. Rittenhouse had taken over Mason Industries and they knew how they were going to solve all of this. My –  biological father had it all worked out. Wyatt was in jail for stealing the Lifeboat and Baumgardner was dead, so Rufus and I had been assigned a new soldier. Or should I say, hired gun. The plan was for us to jump to 1962 Texas, and kill your mother. Maria Thompkins.”

“Wh –  ?” Flynn feels punched. “You knew my mother?”

“After the moon landing,” Lucy goes on, coolly and dispassionately as if reading a medical report. “We found out who the woman you spent all your time with there was, and that you saved your half-brother’s life. So, of course, Rittenhouse found out as well. The easiest way to stop you, according to them, was just to kill your mother before you were born. Rufus and I both vehemently opposed it, fought against it. I told Cahill to his face that it was the wrong decision and that I wouldn’t do it. It didn’t matter. We still ended up in the Lifeboat in 1962.”

“But – ” Flynn is reeling, struggling to keep up with this. Knowing that she would have been justified in letting this happen, as he was willing to let her grandfather die in the explosion in 1954. Her father was already born, yes, but – ”I’m still. . . here, I didn’t – ”

“Yes,” Lucy says. “Yes, you are. Because Rufus, the shy tech geek who has never fought anything except in a computer game, took on a trained Rittenhouse assassin to save your mother. I helped,” she adds, clearly as an afterthought. “We managed to knock him out, subdue him, and jump back to pick up Wyatt and follow you to 1931. You remember what you arranged to happen to Rufus in 1931?”

Flynn cringes.

Lucy folds her arms, chin tilted back –  showy displays, major breakdowns aren’t her style –  but transparently and totally furious. “So,” she says. “You know why Rufus snarks at you and you snark at him and so forth? It’s because he’s scared of you. He’s scared to be alone with you, he’s scared you’ll try to get him killed again, and he knows it would jeopardize the mission if he said anything, so he swallows it and he never tells you what he did for your mother, and just ignores it, because he’s that brave. Wyatt is used to hating your guts. Me, well, I know you well enough that I’m not that bothered by you anymore. But Rufus? How does he protect himself?”

“Lucy – ” Flynn’s cheeks feel hot. “Lucy, I’m – ”

“I don’t want your apology,” Lucy says. “Not for me. What I want is for you to apologize to him, and mean it. Not that I’m holding my breath for that. So. Suit yourself. We’re stuck with each other anyway.”

She shrugs again, having never raised her voice once through all of this, while Flynn can feel each of the stripes she left scalding on his backside. It strikes him how deeply, truly connected the three of them actually are, much as he derides it and snorts at it and rolls his eyes. Wyatt wants nothing for himself, if Lucy might be hurting more, and Lucy wants nothing for herself, if Rufus might be hurting more. Whatever each one of them are facing, struggling with, they don’t care about that pain if they need to cover someone else’s back, close ranks, shield whoever might be nearest to breaking. That’s why they kept beating Flynn, stopping his plans. He knew as much about where and when they were as them, if not more. He was willing to do far more than them. He was certainly not concerned with whatever collateral damage he might inflict. But they do have something he doesn’t. They have each other. And it’s true that they have far more to forgive him for than he does them, and yet, they’ve still offered him a place with them. Out of necessity, yes, but they’ve tried to make it more than that. And he’s –

Flynn doesn’t have any idea what to say. He feels as if the ground has gone out from under him, as if she’s reached into his chest and torn something out of him, that small, endless fire that he keeps burning against the world, the sense of righteous outrage, the only thing he really has left. It hurts him, but it hurts his enemies more, so it’s always been a sacrifice he’s willing to make. Now, though. Now, he’s completely at a loss. Just him, and Lucy Preston across the way, still confoundedly expecting him to change, to make a better choice. He wishes she wouldn’t. That she would just give up. That would make this easier.

And yet. He knows that that –  as with him –  is the one thing she is never going to do.

He takes a step. Another. After what Lucy just said to him, she would once more be deserved in backing away, in running screaming. But Garcia Flynn has always been a man of action, and that is the only way he knows how to go about fixing this, in whatever small part. When Lucy doesn’t back away, when he’s reached her and closed the distance between them again, when she’s practically straining her neck to look directly up at him, he holds her gaze. Then, slowly, goes to his knees in front of her, which makes them just about even. He waits.

Lucy’s cheeks flush pink, as her tongue darts out to touch her lips. He can breathe the faint lingering fragrance of her shampoo, that fresh scent that hangs around women, something bracing and clean, a bit like sunlight. It’s going to his head, it’s making him giddy, so he’s thankful to already be on his knees. As his hands come up, almost span her waist, and then he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of her leggings. _Punish yourself later._ His mantra, every time he comes close to forgetting, for a moment, why he is doing this. As he tugs them slowly down her hips, pulling her panties with them, as he brushes his nose against her slender thigh and she sucks in a breath and braces her hands on his shoulders. He is light-headed with want for her. He is starving to death, and the banquet is laid before him, but he will not take a bite.

Lucy utters a small impatient noise in her throat, trying to shift herself into his mouth, and Flynn is a number of things, but he’s not quite strong enough to resist that. He kisses her as suddenly below as he did above, all at once, thorough and devouring, and Lucy’s grip tightens on him almost hard enough to hurt. Not that she could hurt him, not this way. In other ways, she’s quite adept, but it is only in seeing his weaknesses and targeting them as unerringly as a sniper. Never cruel, never for sport, but simply because she knows exactly what he is, and always has.

Flynn braces himself, hands on her thighs, as he licks her, delicately circles her clit with the tip of his tongue, and then moves lower, slipping his tongue into her, starting a slow rhythm. He increases the pace steadily, pulling her leg to drape over his shoulder as she grasps for purchase on the Lifeboat again, knuckles white. As with everything Flynn does, it is done wholeheartedly and with utter abandon, no stopping, no slowing, no mitigating factor. He bites lightly at her, moving her leg to get a better angle, as he can hear the ghost of a moan catch in her throat. She doesn’t say anything. Likely for the best. Talking rarely goes well between the two of them.

Flynn can taste her slickness on his tongue, a light citrusy tart that must be from whatever she washed with in the shower, feel the rasp of her fine dark hair against his lips. He doesn’t let up until Lucy’s toes clench, her body shudders, and she comes with a choking, muffled gasp that reverberates against his mouth, through both of them and into the Lifeboat on the other side. Oddly fitting, considering that he feels as if they are adrift on a wild and stormy sea, and this is the only chance they have of survival, of ever making it back to land. He remains where he is for a moment more, then slides back on his knees, once more wiping his mouth with his arm, feeling hot and bothered and fragile as glass himself, but not about to ask her for satisfaction. He will handle it. Later. Alone. As usual.

Lucy stands there weak-kneed, mouth open, eyes dark, gasping, until she finally recollects herself, pulls up her panties and leggings, and shoots a half-tentative look at him, as if waiting for him to do something else. When he doesn’t, she bites her lip, ducks her head, and says softly, “Good night, Flynn.” Shoots another look back as if wondering or perhaps even hoping (though surely that is his imagination) that he will stop her. But he doesn’t.

Flynn watches her go for a long moment, head thundering. Then, when he is sure she’s off to –  wherever she’s going, whatever she’s going to do for the rest of the night –  he shuffles gingerly out of the warehouse, out across the courtyard, and up the stairs to his room. Shuts the door behind him and swears, in several of the numerous languages he knows. He doesn’t exactly feel better, and he needs to attend to things, so he angrily wrenches off his shirt and trousers, gets on the bed, and takes himself in hand. Closes his eyes and imagines Lorena, imagines her smiling, saying something earthy, pushing him onto his back. He was always happy to let her lead; she enjoyed sex, enjoyed having it, knew what she wanted and how she wanted him to give it to her –  which was good, because he was clueless. Not about the sex part, as he could manage that well enough, but making her happy, truly being what she needed and wanted. Women have always been a mystery to him, like most men, but she took him by the hand and patiently showed him how, never made him feel stupid for not knowing. Chose him, for some baffling reason, when he was just as much a wreck as he is now, though somewhat differently. And now she can –

Flynn’s eyes flash open. Because he has been thinking of Lorena, but the face he’s picturing, that came the most easily to his mind, wasn’t hers. Figures. He isn’t sure that he shouldn’t be completely ashamed of himself, trying to jerk off to his wife’s memory after going the “I’m sorry I’m a disaster, does oral sex help?” route with another woman. He feels hollow and tawdry and unsatisfied, struggling to recapture the exact details of Lorena’s face, the arch of her lips, the fine network of blue veins under her skin, and almost panics when he realizes that he can’t. He has no pictures of her. He went off the grid after the murders and had to destroy every bit of potentially trackable electronic equipment. All the hard copies, all the photograph albums, were packed up and taken away by Lorena’s parents. They never were terribly fond of Flynn, blamed him for their daughter and granddaughter’s death (they’re not wrong, he thinks, they’re not wrong) and saw no reason to let him have any, especially if he was going on the run. The only place he sees her now is in his dreams.

He is starting to forget.

He is starting to forget.

He can’t stop it. It’s going to keep happening. There is no way to reverse the process. He has to do this, he has to get her back, because otherwise one day in the not-so-distant future, he might wake up and find even the ghost of her gone. He might not even remember exactly what he has lost. And when that happens, she’ll be truly gone. Rittenhouse will win.

In a cold sweat, Flynn eases himself down on the bed, letting go and abandoning his efforts, lying there with his eyes screwed shut until things go somewhat slack on their own. He feels nauseous, panicked, at the edge of control, forcing down the screaming in his head. One more night. He can make it one more night. Then decide tomorrow if he can keep going. That’s the trick. Make it through a day, remember that you can always die if you can’t. That’s the comfort.

Flynn waits until his breathing steadies, until his heart unclenches. He should get some sleep, though he rarely does. Doubtless they will be once more charging into the breach soon enough.

He decides he will apologize to Rufus tomorrow. It’s oddly comforting.

He listens to his breath. He tries to count sheep. He always told Iris to, though he wasn’t sure it worked. He listens to the night go on. Listens to the earth spin, the stars rattle softly in the heavens, the world move inexorably toward another morning. It won’t stop. It won’t stop.

All he can try to do is spin the planet back. Pass through the doors of time, rewrite the annals of time and space and history. He has always known that he is a difficult man to love, and that Lorena is the only woman who could, who was willing, who understood. Without her, he has no chance.

(No chance, he insists.)

(No chance.)

Eventually, shivering, silent, solitary in the dark, he sleeps.


End file.
